May 16, 2026

Our society has a vested interest in supporting everyone to reach their full potential in order to create the best possible future, individually and collectively. I am woefully aware that this is not how American society currently stands. I also remain hopeful that the crises we are facing serve as pathways for systems to begin to transform. Systems that have resisted transformation for their own survival must now transform in order to survive. The same interest that made the work I’ve been doing so hard seems to be the opening that in this different context creates possibility. 

In order for people to reach their full potential, we must promote resilience, and in order to truly promote resilience, we must be trauma-informed. Let me acknowledge issues, both fair and unfair, that have emerged around these terms before moving forward. 

Before doing that, let me also acknowledge that language is incredibly complex, should continue to evolve, and my own use of language will continue to evolve as time moves forward. But this language I have found to best balance the desire to describe my work most accurately with the desire to describe my work to the widest possible audience. I have been in many conversations that design language that becomes so specific that it alienates most people from understanding what is being communicated outside of a narrow echochamber. That is important work and I am grateful for those who work to better shape language moving forward, but my primary focus will continue to be on implementation. So I will do the best I can with the language that I know and commit to an ongoing process of learning and growth as language develops over time.

Starting with resilience, I have heard two main complaints about the word. Both, to me, are fair: 

1) Adopted from physics, the definition of resilience means the ability for something to bounce back to its original shape. Those working in human services know that people do not bounce back from great adversity to their original forms, we are forever changed. Post-traumatic growth and post-traumatic wisdom inspire hope that this does not mean that we are changed for the worse necessarily, but we are undoubtedly changed by these experiences. I agree completely, as I will discuss from my own experiences. This, however, is a limitation of the English language and until I discover a better word to describe the phenomenon described about our capacity to withstand and navigate adversity and stress, I will continue to use the word resilience. 

2) People are tired of being told to be resilient in the face of injustice. We should not just need to be strong enough to withstand abusive systems and unfair circumstances. Systems should be made more just rather than people being made more resilient. I understand and largely agree with this sentiment, and also, that is unfortunately not the current trajectory of our society, and, even with more just systems, we still need to be resilient (though perhaps not as resilient as is currently demanded for many) to the adversity and stress that we will face throughout our lives. 

Now, with trauma-informed. I have heard two main complaints about the term. One to me is fair, the other is not. I will start with the fair critique:

1) The term trauma-informed began in an inpatient setting and was developed within the context of specific clinical language. As it has been adopted in society more broadly, losing its clinical context, it has also lost its work toward standardization. This is an ongoing process that I know is being addressed because I have been working with many folks on this exact issue, but it is undoubtedly an issue. To be trauma-informed, to me, is a north star that we never truly reach. I cannot possibly know every trauma - as trauma is in the perception of an event or circumstance - nor every trauma response that exists. I can be trauma-responsive and trauma-sensitive, but to me being trauma-informed is what we strive for, even if we never attain it. Meanwhile, I have seen many others go to one training and deem themselves to be trauma-informed. Perhaps the right place is somewhere between these two extremes, but this is not an argument to be fleshed out in this blog post. This is acknowledgement that the lack of standardization is a real issue.

2) The unfair critique is that it is a politicized term. In my experience, it is not. The politicization of the term is not pretend by those who have had to navigate the term “trauma” showing up on the banned words list, alongside many others, early in the Trump administration, but this is the fabrication of far right think tanks to move public investment away from specific organizations and programs rather than true politicization. When I met with staff from Speaker Mike Johnson’s office last year to discuss the importance of trauma-informed education, we talked about the trauma that impacts students and staff in Shreveport, Louisiana, as well as programs being implemented in schools there to promote better outcomes. Earlier this year when I met with Senator Ted Cruz’s office to discuss the Community Mental Wellness and Resilience Act, we talked about the trauma in his state when a flash flood last year devastated a summer camp and its communities, and the need to build population-level resilience to the impacts of extreme weather events and other disasters. I have met with political appointees in the Trump administration talking about how unresolved trauma costs our society trillions of dollars. Russ Vought, one of the architects of Project 2025, openly uses the word trauma, granted for pretty nefarious reasons, but nonetheless there is an acknowledgement and understanding that trauma is real and trauma-informed care is important. I have had the great privilege of traveling to meet with and speak to audiences in both very conservative and very liberal parts of the country. Trauma knows no bounds and is universal. The politicization is manufactured and, while I may be selective with wording when I need to, in an effort to play to win rather than not to lose (which will be the topic of a future blog post), I will not be scared off from using the term.

So, after perhaps too much meandering through acknowledgements before actually getting to the point of this particular blog post, let’s discuss building more trauma-informed systems that promote resilience. Our systems often try to rush people to heal and ignore the grieving process rather than providing long-term support that enables post-traumatic growth and post-traumatic wisdom to build. This is the second time I have used these terms, so let me just say that in a topic as heavy as the deep dive into trauma science is, this is a place where real hope emerges. Trauma inherently changes the trajectory of our lives in big or small ways. Of course, trauma can destroy lives. The burden can become so great that it crushes us. But with supports and time to process in healthy ways, we can learn things about ourselves and life that would not otherwise be able to be learned, and creating environments for such capacities to emerge should be the goal. Let me discuss what this looked like in my own experience. 

When I was 15, between my freshman and sophomore year of high school, my childhood best friend and his dad who was an incredibly important figure in my life, as well as his uncle, died when their plane collided with a helicopter above the Hudson River. It was devastating. In an instant, my whole world changed, and there was nothing I could do to make it better. I struggled throughout my sophomore year, was diagnosed with ADHD and put on medications to help me pay attention in class, which numbed me to much of what I was feeling. I had recurring nightmares that I was in the plane with them and struggled to sleep, which negatively affected my academic and social life. My one saving grace, as it has been multiple times in my life, was baseball. In the darkest of times, at least there was something that I truly looked forward to. 

When I got my drivers license, an assistant wrestling coach at the high school who had been an assistant coach for my travel baseball and basketball teams growing up, knew I was struggling and invited me to workout with the wrestling teams in the morning at 5am. I don’t know if he knew that I was struggling to sleep, but I figured I would do it because I was up anyway. What emerged was a process of transformation over the next couple of years that positioned me to get closer to reaching my potential in a number of areas. I never wrestled, but the cardio and strength training I did with the wrestling team made me a much better baseball player. Also, whereas my inability to sleep had become a bit of a vicious cycle, implementing an exercise routine transformed it into a virtuous cycle. Because I worked out in the morning, I was better ready to be productive in school during the day, and then I was so tired that I couldn’t help but start sleeping through the night. As this trend continued, I became healthier and happier, which improved my academic and athletic performance, as well as my social life. 

At some point it was up to me to do the hard work and exercise, but without the opportunity and support from others, I would never have gotten to the same place on my own. I think about resilience like when I was learning to lift weights with the wrestling team. First, we can’t start off with 500 pounds on a bar, doing so would hurt us before we can get strong enough to lift it (note: I still can’t life 500 pounds, but this big number is meant to illustrate that many people experience immense stress from the time they are born, more than I have ever had to navigate). I started by learning the right form before we added weight, and then slowly we built strength over time to lift more weight. Additionally, I was never supposed to lift on my own. There was always a spotter to catch the weight if it got to be too much. This not only kept me from getting hurt, but also enabled me to push myself to lift heavier, which in turn resulted in me becoming stronger. Building resilience to navigate more “weight” (read: stress) is similar. We must build the right form (regulation techniques, healthy coping mechanisms, etc.) and have others to provide (or at least enhance) structure and support so we can build resilience.

My first job after graduating high school was working for a nonprofit organization in a public high school in Philadelphia. While geographically it was just seven miles from where I graduated from high school, it was a whole world apart. So many students faced far more adversity than I had with far fewer opportunities and supports available to them. The majority of the student population lived at or near the poverty line and faced other issues surrounding structural racism. There was one student I worked with who lost three friends to gun violence. I knew what losing one friend was like, I could only imagine losing three. Yet, at the same time as there was greater adversity, there were fewer opportunities to develop healthy coping mechanisms than were available to me. There were not the same extracurricular activities and the school was far more punitive than supportive, less a comment on any individual teacher, as I got to learn from some truly amazing teachers that year, but a comment on the way the school system was organized. 

There weren’t worse outcomes in the school because the students were any less talented than those I grew up with, if anything the opposite was true because of all they learned to navigate early in life, but they were not given the same developmental opportunities. Many students I worked with have since become successful in their early adult lives, but many others were not, as the cycles of poverty are so challenging to navigate. Those who did had amazing internal fortitude and at least someone as an external support to help them navigate life’s challenges. 

We, as a society, far too frequently put the onus and burden of trauma and resilience on individuals, while failing to recognize that traumatized systems perpetuate stress and adversity, disproportionately onto marginalized people and groups of people, which perpetuates negative outcomes at the individual, family, and community levels that we are then required to fix downstream through costs absorbed by systems, that are then used as fact patterns to reduce the upstream investment to promote better outcomes in the first place. It is deeply flawed. 

One of the hallmarks of trauma across the socialecological framework is fragmentation, at a macro level we see this in the siloing of systems, and across all levels we see that one of the hallmarks of healing is integration. We must create greater integrity, both with respect to having different components working together and being based on sound principles, in our systems to experience better outcomes as a society. The American myth of pulling oneself up by their bootstraps falls apart when we don’t ensure that everyone even has boots in the first place.

I have seen work done to promote resilience in communities and systems that takes much of what may sound theoretical in my prose and put it into action. One project that has followed me from my time with CTIPP to my work with The Change Campaign is my support of Resilience Coordinating Networks, which are essentially community-led and cross-sector coalitions. These networks are largely undersupported, but have proven themselves to be incredibly effective at promoting better outcomes for our society. I will not go into all of the evidence supporting this in this blog post, but if you are interested in learning more, you can check out my capstone project that largely revolves around this on The Change Campaign’s website. 

We must change the way we organize in order to promote different outcomes. Resilience Coordinating Networks provide a framework for doing just this, with the flexibility for community ownership to adapt so that the work resonates with different communities' populations, needs, resources, and desires. As I often say, we have so much to learn, but we also know enough to get started in promoting better outcomes. And this is where opportunity lies given the cascading crises of our times. I will acknowledge that I struggle with the wording around it being an opportunity because it feels like taking advantage of the devastation that has been taking place, but nonetheless systems are ready in new ways to adapt as they should have for a long time. 

The cuts by DOGE were horrific. The federal government was undeniably inefficient, but blindly taking a hacksaw to cut spending is moronic in any business, and even more dangerous in the business of government when the programs were structured to support people and the planet. Cutting programs that support people to save costs in the short-term follows the same logic as stuffing cash under your mattress as an investment strategy. It was never going to get us out of the nearly $40 trillion dollars in debt we find ourselves today, but then again that’s not what it was ultimately designed to do. That was how DOGE was sold, but it made space for greater corruption and grift. And in a post-DOGE America, the systems that were impacted, virtually every system designed to serve wellbeing domestically and internationally, are now prepared to adapt. We must simultaneously develop different strategies to support individuals, families, and communities being impacted by the wicked problems of cascading and cooccurring crises (from economic to energy to health to political instability and a void of leadership to war and more), while also building a framework and strategy in which systems can be better designed to reduce preventable stress so that individuals, families, and communities can truly thrive. 

Innovations coming out of the trauma-informed field, from biocracy as a governance framework to methods to better supporting individuals, are a necessary part of this work. Supporting an honest effort to promoting resilience from the individual to systems levels must be a unifying goal with which we are working toward. The economics of doing so and the social outcomes that are achievable necessitates this approach. As these blogs continue, and as the work of The Change Campaign continues more broadly, scaffolding will take place for what this looks like in individual systems, as an organizing framework, and what is being learned. I look forward to the work ahead, and most importantly, creating a sustainable planet and a better future for all.